Guatemala on Wednesday backed down on a new law forcing vehicle owners to take out insurance, suspending it following violent demonstrations.
The Central American country has been convulsed by two days of protests over the law, which was published on Monday and due to come into effect on May 1.
The government initially said that the reforms were necessary to compensate victims of road accidents and their families after a deadly bus collision that saw more than 50 people killed in February.
Photo: AFP
However, following nationwide demonstrations blocking about 30 roads, which saw police deploying tear gas on protesters, Guatemalan President Bernardo Arevalo said he would suspend the law.
That would “end the blockades and re-establish normal mobility throughout the country,” Arevalo said in a video posted online.
Protest organizers had agreed to set up a technical committee to implement regulations set out in the Guatemalan Traffic Act within one year, he added.
While the Traffic Act makes vehicle insurance compulsory, there is no regulation obliging vehicle owners to buy it.
The decree published on Monday would have required owners of cars, trucks, motorbikes and other motorized vehicles to take out insurance to cover harm they cause to others in the event of an accident.
This requirement came after a Feb. 10 incident, after 54 people were killed when a bus collided with several small vehicles and plunged into a ravine in Guatemala City, the nation’s capital.
“Road accidents are the main cause of death in the country, far more than crime,” a spokesman for the presidency told reporters earlier on Wednesday, calling the deaths a “national tragedy” that “must change.”
Opponents of the insurance requirement argued that many motorists, including taxi drivers, cannot afford to buy car insurance in Guatemala, where 60 percent of the population of more than 17 million lives in poverty.
The president said that the new requirement caused “understandable doubts in many households,” as it did not provide an estimation of insurance costs.
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